# Instructions

Define your agent's behavior, guardrails, model, and response style.

## Overview

Open Build → Instructions to edit the directions your agent follows. General instructions describe its role and response behavior. Guardrails set boundaries for requests it should decline, clarify, or hand off.

## General instructions

- Describe the customers and business the agent supports.
- Specify tone, language, and the amount of detail customers need.
- Explain how to use the knowledge sources and what to do when information is missing.
- Name the situations that require an action or human handoff.
- Avoid conflicting rules or promises the connected tools cannot fulfill.

![QwryAI support instructions](/docs/screenshots/original/qwryai-instructions.jpg)

General instructions, response guardrails, and the model configuration for the QwryAI support agent.

## Guardrails

Use the Guardrails editor for clear boundaries: information the agent should not disclose, claims it should not make, and situations that need a person. Test the boundary with both a request it should accept and a closely related request it should reject or escalate.

> **Enforce permissions in your systems**: Instructions guide the AI's behavior. Your API, integrations, and approval policies must still enforce access to business data and write operations.

## Model configuration

| Control | Purpose |
| --- | --- |
| Model | Choose from the models available in the workspace selector. |
| Temperature | Adjust the Reserved-to-Creative setting from 0 to 1 in steps of 0.1. Evaluate the effect on your own support questions. |

## Compare before saving

1. Edit General, Guardrails, or Model configuration.
2. Choose Compare to evaluate the candidate settings alongside your saved settings.
3. Use representative customer questions, including missing information and handoff cases.
4. Review whether the change improves correctness and tool selection.
5. Save the settings you want to use, then retest the deployed channel.

## Channel instructions

A channel can use shared global instructions or its own configuration. When a channel is set to sync with global instructions, editing that shared text affects the other channels that sync with it. Review the channel's sync setting before saving.

- [Help Page configuration](/docs/user-guides/agent-management/help-page)
- [Playground](/docs/user-guides/agent-management/playground)